Congress Must Save Daca - and Not Just for Dreamers

By
The Alagiri Immigration Law Firm
|September 17, 2017

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer
say they’ve brokered a deal with Trump for a replacement for the
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The current program,
created by President Obama, allowed undocumented immigrants who had been
brought to the United States as children a way to attend college, work,
and otherwise carry on their lives in the United States.

Trump won’t go as far as to say he’s made a deal, but confirms
discussing DACA with Schumer and Pelosi. He also confirms that he’s
willing to support a legislative solution for Dreamers in exchange for
enhanced border security measures. Those measures will not include funding
for the wall.

The announcement that Trump was ending the DACA program met with disapproval
from all corners. The vast majority of Americans of all political persuasions,
including Trump supporters, favor allowing Dreamers a path to citizenship
or an opportunity to become permanent legal residents. The outcry has
been primarily on humanitarian grounds: Dreamers were brought to this
country as children, and many don’t remember any other home. Deporting
them would, in many cases, mean sending a young adult to an unfamiliar
country with no knowledge of the country, no family or contacts, and who
may even be unable to speak the language.

It turns out, though, that Dreamers aren’t the only ones who would
be hurt by ending DACA.

The Economic Impact of Deporting Dreamers

Earlier this year, fellows from the CATO Institute released a report projecting
that ending DACA would cost the federal government alone $60 billion in
the ten years following its repeal. The overall economic cost was estimated
at more than $200 billion over a decade. One reason they expect that ending
DACA would be so expensive for the U.S. is that it is unlikely that the
U.S. would invest the resources necessary to actually deport the more
than 750,000 DACA registrants. In other words, these currently productive
members of society would again become undocumented immigrants and unable
to continue their educations and career paths. Instead, they would be
driven underground, into low-paying, off-the-books jobs.

Another report, released by the Center for American Progress in August,
projects that if the DACA program ends, 1,400 people currently working
will become ineligible for employment each day. This exodus could cost
U.S. employers $2 billion in the first two years.

Dreamers Contribute to More than the Economy

The economic impact of either deporting Dreamers or simply terminating
the program without an alternative would be significant. However, there’s
more than just money at stake.

As tens of thousands of working Dreamers lose their work authorization,
some U.S. industries may face a serious shortage of qualified employees.
Of particular concern is the healthcare sector, where demand for services
is expected to grow as baby boomers age. This increased demand is expected
to necessitate the addition of hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers
across the next decade.

About 20% of employed Dreamers work in the healthcare industry, and their
concentration is even greater in some geographic areas. For example, about
25% of home healthcare workers across the U.S. are immigrants. However,
that number is significantly higher in some of our most populous states:
about 50% in California and more than 65% in New York.

The U.S. can ill afford to lose qualified healthcare workers, let alone
at a rate of 6,000 or more each month.

The Bottom Line on DACA

Rescinding DACA without a legislative alternative will hurt the nearly
800,000 young adults working and studying in the United States under the
program. It will hurt the federal government’s budget, and reduce
state and local tax revenues. It will leave key industries short of competent
workers, and will increase the number of immigrants in the underground
economy, working low-paying jobs and not paying income taxes.

With more than 75% of the country supporting citizenship or permanent legal
residence for Dreamers and the high economic and social cost of terminating
the program, there is simply no upside to repealing DACA without providing
an alternative. The only potential benefit of Trump’s decision to
end DACA is that Congress now has a powerful incentive to offer Dreamers
something better than deferred action—a pathway to citizenship or
permanent legal residence.

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